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Emerging from underground venues in Chicago’s Northwest side, NE-HI made its name on both its live
energy and cleverly wrought guitar anthems. On its second album Offers (Grand Jury), the band takes those
basement-forged instincts and refines them, lets its guitars explore new angles, and focuses its songwriting.
The result shows there are a wide range of post-punk possibilities yet to be explored.
It all started at Animal Kingdom, a flash-in-the-pan DIY basement in Chicago’s Logan Square. There, in the
summer of 2013, three friends from college, Jason Balla (guitar/vocals), Mikey Wells (guitar/vocals) and
James Weir (bass) linked up with drummer Alex Otake to score a buddy’s film and decided to start bashing
around together as NE-HI. NE-HI’s more ambitious sound and heady arrangements broke away from garage
rock’s back-to-basic’s approach. The band’s disparate influences--Wire’s post-punk, Springsteen’s
everyman anthems, along with echoes of dreamy atmospheres of Dave Roback’s Rain Parade and the
jangly buzz of Kiwi pop legends The Clean--began burning through. The band attracted the attention of
Dave Vettraino, who asked NE-HI to record at his Public House Recordings studio for posting on his
website. Vettraino would go on to record the band’s debut album. The Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot gave the
debut the #4 spot in his 2014 year-end list.
Offers is NE-HI finding that rising to the occasion means living up to your own standards, not someone
else’s. The band entered Chicago’s Minbal studio in January 2016 to record ten songs with Vettraino
engineering, but scrapped most of the session. To finish the record, NE-HI went back to touring, writing,
rewriting and returned to Minbal in March more solid than ever. It recorded most of Offers live at Minbal
to capture the energy--only overdubbing vocals.
Offers drones, it captivates with soaring pop, it shimmers with atmosphere, always changing, looking. The
album veers from the staccato pop of “Palm of Hand” (which nods to Chicago’s Disappears) to the jangly
pleasures of “Stay Young.” The off-kilter, ultra-catchy “Sisters” refines the carefree feeling of the band’s
debut--picking up the spirit of New Zealand pop. Title track “Offers” feels like a slight departure, the band
pushing its most abstract and unpredictable instincts. On “Prove” the band’s post-punk guitars come at
blistering tempo, it’s the band’s most athletic moment yet. While the punchy drawl of “Buried on the
Moon” conjures a less sleepy Let’s Active.
Offers finds the distant influence of forebears in cerebral guitar pop presented with a familiarity that
typifies great FM rock hits. The Midwestern boys (two from Chicago, one from Wisconsin, and one from
Minnesota) in NE-HI have a knack for knitting something comfortable and warm from those art school castoffs
and cult favorites. NE-HI’s music demands to be lived in. Chances are good that in the case of Offers,
regifting will be rare.

“If you’ve decided to follow Drew Beskin’s music, it can sometimes feel like he’s trying to be your nemesis, or at least that he’s trying to make you lose his trail. Over the last seven years or so, he’s offered intriguing bands like The District Attorneys, Party Dolls, and PURSES. Of those, only The DAs lasted more than one album, despite each project offering increasingly nuanced takes on Beskin’s version of indie pop. His first proper solo record, “Cha-Ching Machine”, was released in March of 2017 via his imprint, Laser Brains. Longtime Beskin listeners will recognize his style immediately in his nods from everything to ‘50s doo-wop to ‘80s jangle to current indie sounds Cha-Ching Machine boasts a remarkable consistency of sound and artistic vision, even for Beskin, who’s always shown a remarkable sense of control over what he wants to do.” - Popmatters